The present invention relates generally to tools for maintenance and repair of firearms, and more particularly to an improved tool for the assembly and disassembly of a trigger guard for a semiautomatic or automatic firearm.
Certain automatic and semiautomatic firearms such as the AR-15 rifle have removable and/or replaceable trigger guards, enabling repair, replacement and substitution with new or replacement parts, the trigger guard typically being held in place by at least one removable and/or resettable pin. For example, the AR-15 rifle has a trigger guard assembly held in place by a forward detent spring pin and a rearward trigger guard pivot pin (also known as a guard roll pin or roll pin) which is typically removed by laying the lower receiver unit of the rifle upon a flat surface or in held in a vice, and then using a hammer and pin removal tool such as a roll pin punch. A punch is a common pin removal tool generally in the form of an flat faced extended uniform cylindrical rod of some hardened metal and a handle, the rod having the same or a slightly smaller diameter than the expanded roll pin or that of the interior diameter of the bore hole in which the roll pin is set. To remove a pin, the roll pin punch tool is placed against the end of the roll pin and the tool positioned to be coaxially aligned with the long axis of the roll pin, so that tapping on the handle end of the tool with a weight or hammer acts to move and dislodged the roll pin from the bore hole in the opposite direction of the roll pin punch and applied force. However, despite an operator taking due care in the placement and orientation of the roll pin punch, it is difficult to maintain a perfect orientation as pressure and/or tapping of the roll pin punch is applied, the result being oblique and lateral forces in addition to the main coaxial (downward typically) force applied to the trigger guard assembly during a roll pin removal process. Despite improvements to roll pin punches, such as the Brownells Roll Pin Punch (Model #230-112-105WB, available from Brownells Inc., 200 South Front Street, Montezuma, Iowa 50171, U.S.A.) which features a small raised projection in the face of the punch that automatically centers the punch and prevents the roll pin from collapsing, the coaxial downward force is still frictionally transferred to the trigger guard assembly, putting unnecessary stress on the trigger guard and the two trigger guard pin joints and surrounding structures. The AR-15 rear trigger guard pin joints are particularly susceptible to bending and/or breakage if excessive force is applied to them, and warping out of alignment with only moderately applied lateral force during roll pin removal. The pin joints are molded into the lower receiver body, so that the functioning of the lower receiver can be compromised if they are distorted, broken off, and/or weakened by bending during a typical pin removal and/or replacement operation.
Various clamps and vice-like devices are conventionally used to hold the lower receiver to facilitate disassembly and pin removal and/or replacement operations. However, those that are commercially available typically only clamp a portion of the lower receiver and do not support the trigger guard components or other susceptible sections of a rifle that can be bent and damaged during disassembly.
Accordingly there is a need for a better device to assist in the maintenance of firearms in order to facilitate damage-free removal and replacement of roll pins at component junctions, such as the trigger guard receiver lips that are susceptible to damage due to forces applied during removal from and insertion of a roll pin into a receiving body or section of a firearm to secure or remove the trigger guard.